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BURPS, NOT FARTS.

Tom Laskawy is attending Princeton's "Feeding a Hot and Hungry Planet" conference. Fun stuff. But he must not be that engaged because he had time to send a couple IMs that suggested a truly disturbing ability to anticipate my interests:

Tom: i'm at an ag conf. at princeton listening to an official from the UN FAO. he had a tidbit i need to share with you.

90% of "enteric fermentation" GHG emissions are from BURPING.

cow farting is basically off the hook. i knew you'd want to be advised of this development

That basically means that the potent methane emissions from cows -- emissions that contribute quite a lot to climate change -- are the product of burps, not farts. Which makes them slightly less funny, and hopefully makes the political system slightly more capable of taking them seriously. And he's right. I am glad to be advised of this development.

By the way: You don't know how hard it was to resist attaching a puerile picture to this post.

About the Author

Ezra Klein is a staff reporter at The Washington Post. You can read his blogging here. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Guardian, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Slate, and The Columbia Journalism Review. He's been a commentator on MSNBC, CNN, NPR, and more.